When Knowledge Becomes a Song: Lessons from Drums, Science, and Spirit

When do you really understand something?

I keep circling back to the idea of degrees of knowledge. We often say we “know” something, but what does that mean? A true expert, a master craftsman, has a kind of knowledge that runs deeper than the surface. It comes from years of practice, mistakes, and attention.

Richard Feynman used to say you know something deeply when you can explain it to a sixth grader. If you can take a heady subject like quantum physics and boil it down to something a twelve-year-old can grasp, you have clarity. And if you can’t, it shows you are still tangled in the complexity. The confusion in your explanation is just your own mind revealed.

Music offers another window into this truth. Think about Back in Black by AC/DC. Their music is deceptively simple, direct, and beautiful. When Metallica was preparing the Black Album, Lars Ulrich was listening to AC/DC. The band moved from sprawling ten-minute arrangements to something tighter, beefier, with more space in the sound. That simplicity was not a shortcut. It was the result of stripping away the unnecessary until only the essential remained. It is no coincidence that the Black Album became a worldwide phenomenon and transformed Metallica from a band with a cult following into a rock icon.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in Braiding Sweetgrass, explains that she wanted to study botany because she thought asters and goldenrod were beautiful and she wanted to know why they stand next to each other when they could grow alone. In contrast, the science she encountered in college, things like the alchemy of photosynthesis and the memorization of concentrations of essential plant nutrients, relied mostly on mind and body. It was knowledge, but it lacked depth. For another look at noticing relationships in the living world, see my reflection Among the Mushrooms

She shares a story from her friend Holly Youngbear. A plant scientist in the rainforest was searching for new species, notebooks and equipment in hand. He had hired an indigenous guide, who took care to point out many plants along the way. Surprised, the scientist said, “You certainly know the names of a lot of these plants.” The young man nodded and lowered his eyes. “Yes,” he said, “I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn their songs.”

That idea of moving from names to songs has always resonated with me. In my own life, mastery has always been a goal. Not to be good, but to be great. To excel. It takes time and dedication. When I was a kid, I had a primal calling to play drums (I wrote more about that here). I found a teacher who wanted to teach me jazz, and I woodshedded six hours a day. I was relentless because I wanted to be a great drummer so badly. I wanted to be just like Will Calhoun of Living Colour and Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Through that level of practice, I was able to play with some great musicians who taught me to listen and to keep growing by opening my ears to all types of music. I was selected for the New York State All-State Orchestra for percussion. As my knowledge deepened, and it moved from mind and body into spirit and emotion, my approach changed. At first I was impressed with complex things, like Neil Peart of Rush. Later I was moved more by simple things, the songs that stirred my emotions, like The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix, or moments that felt like a communion with a higher power, like John Coltrane’s effortless Naima.

Drummers who could make the music feel better became my heroes. Players like Steve Gadd and Jeff Porcaro. They were strong technically, but it was their feel, the way they made the music bounce and the story they told on the drums in the context of a song that made them first-call musicians. Ever find yourself tapping your feet to Beat It by Michael Jackson? That is the spirit of Jeff Porcaro.
How about 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon? That is the quintessential Steve Gadd, to quote My Cousin Vinny. They made songs into hits. That is a special kind of knowledge, the kind that happens only after years of practice at a craft and learning from others in community. Like the indigenous way of knowing, they were able to sing with the drums.

Maybe that is when we really understand something. Not when we can recite its name, or even explain its function, but when we know its song. When the knowledge is clear enough to teach simply and deep enough to touch the body, the emotions, and the spirit. That is the level of knowledge I want to apply in everything I do: cooking, parenting, coaching, running a business, even writing this blog. Because in the end, it is the songs that stir us, the ones we learn to hear and carry, that stay with us the longest.